Orange Duce

[Typical Lax Dad]

The Neal and George Show; tonight's episode: Impeachment Much? (or what YA calls ordinary, everyday oppo-research (while using the official functions of the White House and faux diplomacy)):

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... story.html

"Simply put, the framers viewed the president as a fiduciary, the government of the United States as a sacred trust and the people of the United States as the beneficiaries of that trust. Through the Constitution, the framers imposed upon the president the duty and obligation to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” and made him swear an oath that he would fulfill that duty of faithful execution. They believed that a president would break his oath if he engaged in self-dealing — if he used his powers to put his own interests above the nation’s. That would be the paradigmatic case for impeachment

That’s exactly what appears to be at issue today. A whistleblower in U.S. intelligence lodged a complaint with the intelligence community’s inspector general so alarming that he labeled it of “urgent concern” and alerted the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Though the details remain secret, apparently this much can be gleaned: The complaint is against the president. It concerns a “promise” that the president made, in at least one phone call, to a foreign leader. And it involves Ukraine and possible interference with the next presidential election. The complaint is being brazenly suppressed by the Justice Department — in defiance of a whistleblower law that says, without exception, the complaint “shall” be turned over to Congress.

We also know this: As he admitted Thursday night on CNN, the president’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, has been trying to persuade the Ukrainian government to investigate, among other things, one of Trump’s potential Democratic opponents, former vice president Joe Biden, and Biden’s son Hunter about the latter’s involvement with a Ukrainian gas company.

Trump held up the delivery of $250 million in military assistance to Ukraine, which is under constant threat from neighboring Russia. He had a phone conversation on July 25 with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. According to the Ukrainian government, the call included a discussion of Ukraine’s need to “complete investigation of corruption cases, which inhibited the interaction between Ukraine and the USA.”

So it appears that the president might have used his official powers — in particular, perhaps the threat of withholding a quarter-billion dollars in military aid — to leverage a foreign government into helping him defeat a potential political opponent in the United States.

If Trump did that, it would be the ultimate impeachable act.

Even if this is true, there is ZERO chance that Republican voters or their leaders in Congress will care one whit. No chance they'll care.

Look at the reaction to Prestwick. They think it's funny to so much as mention the conflict. Trump has to shoot someone in full view of the public to get impeached. And even then, if the person that he killed was a liberal, neither Republican voters nor their leaders in Congress would care.

I thought conservatives would be livid over meeting with Russian spies. Nope. Waved through. Cheered on. And any protestations were mocked.

I'm counting the days before we get Trump's liberal counterpart with a Democratic Senate. Boy, will it be funny to watch him/her use emergency powers to totally dismantle our Military Industrial Complex, and shut every last overseas base. And then plow all that saved money into domestic socialism. Oh, and fire everyone in the upper management at the FBI and CIA, and replace them with Senate confirmed toadies.

So what? That's not illegal.

It’s coming. Not sure when but it’s coming.

You actually believe Trump is a conservative??? What you been smoking?

Where did I say he is conservative?

[Farfromgeneva]

Well it does sort of imply that the opposite of trump is a far left person, that’s how I read it and thought the same thing.

Of course drumpf isn’t defined by any philosophy other than hedonism so the opposite would be like ghandi or a Buddhist monk.

[a fan]

Well it does sort of imply that the opposite of trump is a far left person, that’s how I read it and thought the same thing.

Yeah, poorly worded on my part.

What a meant was: a self-serving, corrupt, fake liberal blowhard. A fake liberal to counter Trump's fake conservatism.

[Bandito]

50,000 Indians packed a stadium in Houston to see Trump and the PM from India, giving both huge ovations throughout. But I thought Trump was a racist? Where’s MDLaxFan76? I thought Trump was a white supremacist ? Lol

This is one of 100s of examples showing how deranged the left is by claiming racism. Look at who the racists are: the left- governor of Virginia, attorney general and Trudeau of Canada wore blackface. Where’s your outrage? Hypocrite!

[ardilla secreta]

At the super rally Trump introduces Modi by bragging that the Indian PM’s stellar economic polices lifted 3 million out of poverty. Given India’s population that’s a whopping 0.002%.

[RedFromMI]

We don’t share your outrage Bandito because we still know that he is a racist white nationalist based on many observations of both his words and actions. You are only pointing out a rare exception to that. Not convincing to most of us.

[Bandito]

We don’t share your outrage Bandito because we still know that he is a racist white nationalist based on many observations of both his words and actions. You are only pointing out a rare exception to that. Not convincing to most of us.

Hahahahaha. Your derangement is so strong it’s amazing to behold. You’re so brainwashed I actually feel bad for you. The left is the racist party. Try brushing up on history and current state of democrat plantation politics.

[RedFromMI]

We don’t share your outrage Bandito because we still know that he is a racist white nationalist based on many observations of both his words and actions. You are only pointing out a rare exception to that. Not convincing to most of us.

Hahahahaha. Your derangement is so strong it’s amazing to behold. You’re so brainwashed I actually feel bad for you. The left is the racist party. Try brushing up on history and current state of democrat plantation politics.

The projection here is amazing. Your argument here would get a failing grade in any logic class. All you have left to do is name calling...

If you truly understood history, I doubt you would be arguing like you do...

[foreverlax]

We don’t share your outrage Bandito because we still know that he is a racist white nationalist based on many observations of both his words and actions. You are only pointing out a rare exception to that. Not convincing to most of us.

Hahahahaha. Your derangement is so strong it’s amazing to behold. You’re so brainwashed I actually feel bad for you. The left is the racist party. Try brushing up on history and current state of democrat plantation politics.

Sometimes it’s worth stepping back to look at the full picture.

He has pressured a foreign leader to interfere in the 2020 American presidential election.

He urged a foreign country to intervene in the 2016 presidential election.

He divulged classified information to foreign officials.

He publicly undermined American intelligence agents while standing next to a hostile foreign autocrat.

He hired a national security adviser who he knew had secretly worked as a foreign lobbyist.

He encourages foreign leaders to enrich him and his family by staying at his hotels.

He genuflects to murderous dictators.

He has alienated America’s closest allies.

He lied to the American people about his company’s business dealings in Russia.

He tells new lies virtually every week — about the economy, voter fraud, even the weather.

He spends hours on end watching television and days on end staying at resorts.

He often declines to read briefing books or perform other basic functions of a president’s job.

He has aides, as well as members of his own party in Congress, who mock him behind his back as unfit for office.

He has repeatedly denigrated a deceased United States senator who was a war hero.

He insulted a Gold Star family — the survivors of American troops killed in action.

He described a former first lady, not long after she died, as “nasty.”

He described white supremacists as “some very fine people.”

He told four women of color, all citizens and members of Congress, to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came.”

He made a joke about Pocahontas during a ceremony honoring Native American World War II veterans.

He launched his political career by falsely claiming that the first black president was not really American.

He launched his presidential campaign by describing Mexicans as “rapists.”

He has described women, variously, as “a dog,” “a pig” and “horseface,” as well as “bleeding badly from a facelift” and having “blood coming out of her wherever.”

He has been accused of sexual assault or misconduct by multiple women.

He enthusiastically campaigned for a Senate candidate who was accused of molesting multiple teenage girls.

He waved around his arms, while giving a speech, to ridicule a physically disabled person.

He has encouraged his supporters to commit violence against his political opponents.

He has called for his opponents and critics to be investigated and jailed.

He uses a phrase popular with dictators — “the enemy of the people” — to describe journalists.

He attempts to undermine any independent source of information that he does not like, including judges, scientists, journalists, election officials, the F.B.I., the C.I.A., the Congressional Budget Office and the National Weather Service.

He has tried to harass the chairman of the Federal Reserve into lowering interest rates.

He said that a judge could not be objective because of his Mexican heritage.

He obstructed justice by trying to influence an investigation into his presidential campaign.

He violated federal law by directing his lawyer to pay $280,000 in hush money to cover up two apparent extramarital affairs.

He made his fortune partly through wide-scale financial fraud.

He has refused to release his tax returns.

He falsely accused his predecessor of wiretapping him.

He claimed that federal law-enforcement agents and prosecutors regularly fabricated evidence, thereby damaging the credibility of criminal investigations across the country.

He has ordered children to be physically separated from their parents.

He has suggested that America is no different from or better than Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

He has called America a “hellhole.”

He is the president of the United States, and he is a threat to virtually everything that the United States should stand for.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/22/opin ... lower.html

[RedFromMI]

And in the case of the Ukrainian pressure campaign - this is not just Trump. Giuliani has been involved with this for several months, and it is quite likely that pretty much all of the national security apparatus/State as it currently exists at the top is going along.

The only reason we know about it (in terms of Trump's direct involvement) is the whistleblower complaint, plus the IG notifying Congress of the existence of the complaint even in spite of the Administration keeping him from directly informing Congress of the nature of the complaint.

The rot is deep here. And the betrayal of the American public is huge.

[a fan]

Can't imagine a scenario where we won't get "so what, that's not illegal?", or "whataboutHillary".

Only reason Senators would cave to impeachment is if they think having Trump will lead to huge losses in the election. Their calculation would have nothing to do with the Ukrainian nonsense...whatever that proves to be.

[seacoaster]

I've been wondering what to make of Giuliani's efforts on behalf of the President. They are certainly unseemly; if Obama had his "personal" lawyer doing this -- say, attempting to convince a foreign power to investigate Mitt Romney's son with the readily implied juice of the Presidency and the levers of foreign relations behind him...-- the hue and cry from the Right, Randyrad, FNC would have been deafening.

I just don't understand Republicans today -- except to answer a fan's question this way: they only -- and by that I mean solely -- care about retaining control over the levers of government. The GOP no longer has a principled philosophy; it only looks for ways to exercise and keep the power of the offices it can occupy for the sake of the power, and not to advance any specific policy or philosophy of government.

[old salt]

I've been wondering what to make of Giuliani's efforts on behalf of the President. They are certainly unseemly; if Obama had his "personal" lawyer doing this

Obama didn't need to use his personal lawyer. HRC did it with the DNC's law firm, which engaged FusionGPS.

[seacoaster]

I've been wondering what to make of Giuliani's efforts on behalf of the President. They are certainly unseemly; if Obama had his "personal" lawyer doing this

Obama didn't need to use his personal lawyer. HRC did it with the DNC's law firm, which engaged FusionGPS.

Sigh.....

[foreverlax]

On hostages

Robert and I have been really successful. And the reason I know him so well — I actually work hard on hostages, I think he would say. I think most Presidents wouldn’t do that, but I do.

Former POTUS don't work getting American hostages returned. Got it

On making a deal with China

Q Do you feel you need that deal before the election, sir?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: No. I don’t think I need it before the election. I think people know that we’re doing a great job. I’ve rebuilt the military. We’ve — Scott and I were talking about that. We spent one and half trillion dollars. When I came in, our million was depleted. Frankly, we didn’t have ammunition, okay? But our military was in very bad shape. We’ve rebuilt the military. We’ve got one of the strongest economies.

No ammunition. Got it.

[RedFromMI]

There is a really good summary of both what sort of false narrative Giuliani/Trump/henchmen are spinning, as well as a good background on what really happened in the following article from TalkingPointsMemo: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker ... -narrative

Summary:

From the starting point of Hunter Biden’s seat on the board of a scandal-ridden Ukrainian gas company, Giuliani has made up a narrative of abuse of power tailored to support allegations of corruption against the Democratic frontrunner, while demanding that Kyiv supply likely fabricated evidence to support his narrative.

After a mini-revolution in 2014, the chief prosecutor was Victor Shokin. Within the West, he was seen as completely ineffectual (refusing to investigate any high level corruption), and there was a widespread effort to remove him, with the IMF and EU threatening to withhold funding if he was not removed. Joe Biden, given the task of dealing with this by Obama, threatened to withhold US loan guarantees until Shokin was removed, and that, combined with all the other efforts worked to get that to happen.

The gas company in Ukraine that Hunter Biden eventually sat on the board of (Burisma Holdings) apparently got lucrative gas drilling licenses from the pre-revolution minister of natural resources, who was also the firm owner. Quite likely that there was significant corruption involved in these leases, but this predates both Biden's involvement in the issue. Yanukovych, the overthrown head of Ukraine, and his compatriots is estimated to have stolen up to $40 billion dollars from the government. The amount of money involved with Burisma is quite small, but would have been easy to recover if Shokin had not refused to actually investigate. This failure helped to remove Shokin.

Joe Biden's efforts to remove Shokin were one year after Shokin had refused to investigate...but Giuliani is insisting that Biden had him fired to protect his son... The timeline just does not work here. Especially since Hunter Biden did not join the gas company board until after the shenanigans had already happened with respect to those leases.

But by playing with timelines, and conflating the actual high crimes and misdemeanors/betrayals of the Trump administration with Obama/Biden, Giuliani/Trump are trying to basically say everybody does it (TAATS). But Obama/Biden did nothing of the sort but actually used foreign policy to help to _reduce_ corruption in Ukraine, and were quite open in what they were doing.

What Trump and Giuliani are doing is trying to force Ukraine's government to fabricate both an investigation that is not needed and evidence that does not exist so they can deflect on their serious crimes.

There is absolutely NO comparison to prior administrations as to their criminality. The feckless GOP is so afraid of Trump and his supporters that they refuse to step in...

[youthathletics]

You seem to have it all figured out....we should have a special counsel just to make sure.

[dislaxxic]

The important thing to always remember is this: Donald Trump is a confirmed, repeat and shameless LIAR.

..

[youthathletics]

The mere fact that you all somehow put trust in any political figure head is telling enough. The left's current hero and this was long before he couldn't complete a complete sentence.

[CU88]

r snowflake hero:

Trump claims Nobel Peace Prize is rigged against him

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/ ... ze-1508484

I can't wait for them all to cry like babies when Greta gets it next month...